American campuses are very different from the nation that surrounds them. The differences are especially profound when it comes to politics. The United States is closely divided between the two major parties. No such division exists on any major college campus.

Federal Election Commission records from 2004 show a wide disparity in donations to the two major presidential candidates from employees of colleges and universities.

Employees at Harvard University gave John Kerry $25 for every $1 they gave George W. Bush. At Duke University, the ratio stood at $8 to $1. At Princeton University, a $302 to $1 ratio prevails.

The Kerry/Bush split in the number of donations is even more extreme. John Kerry received 257 donations of $200 or more from Stanford, while his opponent got just 28. At Northwestern, Kerry received 100 contributions and Bush six. Georgetown University donations swung 132 to six in Kerrys favor.

Deep Blue Campuses examines the political donations of employees at the top twenty-five national universities listed in U.S. News and World Reports 2004 college issue. Specifically, the booklet compares donations in the 2004 election cycle to the two major presidential candidates, George W. Bush and John Kerry...

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DEEP BLUE CAMPUSES​

John Kerry v. George W. Bush

Giving To 2004 Presidential Campaigns From Employees at U.S. News & World Reports Top-Ranked National Universities​

"This isn't a Democratic idea. This isn't a Republican idea. This is an American idea," GW tells Calvin College graduates in Rapid City, Michigan yesterday, outmaneuvering Democratic efforts to undermine Republican hearts-and-minds strategy in this important swing state. (White House photo)

It happens every spring. The college or university invites a VIP to address the graduating class, TV cameras roll, and it's one more anti-American soundbite for the evening news. By far the most notorious example of the genre this season -- the talk of the blogosphere -- is PepsiCo's President and CFO Indra Nooyis speech to Columbia Business School graduates last Sunday. We loved Donald Sensing's take on her "litany of nattering negativism":

Basically, Ms. Nooyi said that America is the big [middle] finger of the worlds hand, and, said she, You know what Im talking about. In fact, I suspect youre hoping that Ill demonstrate what I mean."

However, for all its anti-America bias, I am undecided whether to boycott Pepsi products for that reason or because it simply is a really lousy speech. Bad public speaking should not be rewarded.

My homiletics professors in seminary had several ironclad rules for presenting sermons for which transgressions were sharply penalized in grades. One of them was simply, Always end with a word of grace . . . It is, we were admonished, terribly ineffective theologically and rhetorically to send an audience (or congregation) out with only negative words to dwell on.

Speaking of terribly ineffective rhetoric, we were delighted to learn from insider Blue Goldfish, a Calvin College grad, that bad-faith efforts by national Democratic consultants working behind the scenes of a "student" protest to generate negative publicity surrounding GW's graduation speech yesterday -- blogged here -- backfired big time. Blue Goldfish has names and affiliations -- delicious reading -- but here's the gist:

About a third of Calvin's faculty and former faculty joined with a few students, administrators, alumni and "friends" to take out an ad in [Saturday's] Grand Rapids Press and use the phrase made slightly famous by Jim Wallis [who happens to be a Democratic consultant] and Sojourners Magazine "God is not a Republican or a Democrat" on graduate arm bands as President Bush delivers a commencement address at that campus in a few days.

A number of Calvin students have set up a Google discussion forum called "Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform," described as "A place to dialogue and organize for those opposed to George W. Bush commandeering Calvin's 2005 Commencement."

Like all of GW's enemies, these folks believed their own rhetoric about the chimp in the White House and fatally "misunderestimated" the "strategeric" thinking of the Poker Player in Chief. Realizing what they were up to, GW appropriated Jim Wallis' "God is not a Republican or a Democrat" and made it his own:

As Americans we share an agenda that calls us to action -- a great responsibility to serve and love others, a responsibility that goes back to the greatest commandment.

This isn't a Democratic idea. This isn't a Republican idea. This is an American idea.

I'm suprised so many of those colleges are liberal when they depend upon the government defense spending to do a whole lot of research. MIT has even been called the Military Institute of Technology. Maybe it was Bush's disapproval of stem cells that did it.

A larger question is are these people the future, is conservatism on the way out. I wouldn't think so. The question comes up "Do most people go to college?" if most people in college are liberal. Maybe some of their views change once their encounter with the Real World amounts to more than watching MTV.

I'm suprised so many of those colleges are liberal when they depend upon the government defense spending to do a whole lot of research. MIT has even been called the Military Institute of Technology. Maybe it was Bush's disapproval of stem cells that did it.

A larger question is are these people the future, is conservatism on the way out. I wouldn't think so. The question comes up "Do most people go to college?" if most people in college are liberal. Maybe some of their views change once their encounter with the Real World amounts to more than watching MTV.

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Nope, the majority are NOT college grads. It used to be that only the 'elite' were exposed to the hammering of viewpoints, whether 'left' or 'right'. The secondary schools focused much more on transmission of knowledge. For the past 40 years or so, that has changed, in an accelerating pattern.

Having served on 2 text review committees and led 2 text selection committees, there is no doubt that the 'revisionists' have been winning the social studies texts war. About 5 years ago though, the Association of History Professors refused to accept the standards suggested by the National Council of the Social Studies, which are now in the process of being rewritten. That, along with 9/11, seems to have changed to at least a small degree where most textbook publishers are going. Prentice-Hall was the best we could do in 2000. They are much better in the 2005 edition.

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